THE STUDY 

OF 

AMERICAN HISTORY 



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THE STUDY 

OF 

AMERICAN HISTORY 

BY 

VISCOUNT BRYCE, O.M. 

BEING THE INAUGURAL LECTURE OF THE 
SIR GEORGE WATSON CHAIR OF AMERICAN 
HISTORY, LITERATURE AND INSTITUTIONS 



WITH AN APPENDIX RELATINS TO 
THE FOUNDATION 



iBlcto gorfe 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1922 

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Printed in the United States of America 



Copyright, 1921 and 1922 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Published January 19'ii 



CONDE NAST PRESS GREENWICH, CONN. 

JAN 18 1922 
€>CI.A654296 



PREFATORY NOTE 

By the Secretary of the 
Anglo-American Society 

Lord bryce's inaugural lecture 

under the Sir George Watson Foundation, which 
is here presented to the pubHc, was delivered 
at the Mansion House, London, on Monday, 
June 27th, 1921, before a large and representative 
assembly, including many American visitors. 
The Rt Hon. Arthur J. Balfour, M.P., presided. 

Mr H. S. Perris, the secretary of the Anglo- 
American Society, read a letter from the Prince of 
Wales's private secretary regretting that owing 
the pressure of public engagements the Prince 
was unable to be present, "especially as this is 
a function which it would have given him special 
pleasure to attend, not only in view of the objects 
for which the Anglo-American Society exists, 
but as a further mark of his appreciation of Sir 
George Watson's generosity." 

Mr Balfour, who had to leave the Mansion 

House before Lord Bryce had concluded his 

address in order to attend the meeting of the 

Imperial Conference, said there could not be a 

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THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

more fitting opening of what he hoped was going 
to be a fruitful course of lectures delivered in 
this country by authorities upon Anglo-American 
history than a lecture by Lord Bryce himself. 
He had every qualification for the task which he 
had so kindly undertaken. He had made his 
name as an historian of European repute much 
more than a generation ago, and that early 
reputation of his had been sustained and increased 
by all his subsequent work. He was not only a 
trained historian and a universal traveller, but he 
was also a special authority upon American 
subjects. He approached questions dealing with 
America with the special advantage that he 
knew the subject not merely from books, not 
merely from the sources which historians or- 
dinarily drew upon in order to complete their 
picture of the past; he had in addition to that 
qualification, which he possessed in the fullest 
measure, the practical experience which residence 
in the United States had given him; a residence 
most important from the immediate diplomatic 
point of view, for he had to deal over and over 
again with questions profoundly interesting to 
both the great English-speaking peoples. In 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

addition to that, he made himself acquainted 
with, and, I think I may say in the presence of 
American friends, beloved, by every section of 
public opinion in America, irrespective of party, 
profession, tastes and all the other varieties of 
interest which divide mankind. That is a unique 
qualification. There is no man living who pos- 
sessed it in anything like the same measure as 
Lord Bryce. Happy indeed were we to have 
secured his services on the present occasion. 

Mr Balfour continued : I need not say anything 
more except that to promote the mutual com- 
prehension of these two great Peoples seems to 
me the worthiest object which any man can 
propose to himself at the present time. I do not 
believe that there is any cause which involves 
greater consequences for the future of civilization. 
I do not believe that there is any end for which 
it is more worth while striving and struggling, 
and I rejoice to-day that this view is not only 
held by students and statesmen like Lord Bryce, 
but has appealed to men who, like my friend Sir 
George Watson, have the imaginative insight to 
see how wealth can best be used, and who now, 
not for the first time in his beneficent career, 

[7] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

has expended great sums of money in a cause 
which I am quite confident will repay all the 
expectations which he has formed of it. 

At the conclusion of Lord Bryce's lecture a 
vote of thanks to the Lord Mayor, to Mr Balfour, 
and to the Lecturer, was moved by Alderman 
Sir Charles Wakefield, Bart., Hon. Treasurer 
of the Anglo-American Society and of the Sul- 
grave Institution. 

This was seconded by Dr. Nicholas Murray 
Butler, President of Columbia University, New 
York, who said: "It is a privilege to be permitted 
on behalf of my countrymen, so many of whom are 
here present this afternoon, to second the vote 
of thanks to the Lord Mayor, to Mr Balfour, and 
to Lord Bo-yce, and I hope I may be permitted 
to add, to Sir George Watson, whose foresight 
and generosity have started a movement which 
one may confidently say is bound to have the 
largest and the happiest results. It would be 
unbecoming in me at this hour to detain you with 
any comments of my own, but perhaps I may 
say that the spirit in which Lord Bryce has ap- 
proached his great subject this afternoon offers 
an introduction to the study of American history 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

that is exceptionally inviting and exceptionally 
profitable. He has not chosen to dwell upon 
names or dates or purely political happenings 
and circumstances, but has rather sought for 
mention and emphasis those great underlying 
principles of social construction and of social 
and political interpretation which it has been, 
after all, the glory of the English-speaking 
peoples for a thousand years in so many ways 
to illustrate and to carry forward. I sincerely 
hope that this vote of thanks, which I am sure 
will be unanimously passed, will be the first of 
many witnesses of appreciation of successive 
lectures upon this foundation and of the generosity 
of him who has made it possible." 

After some words in support of the Resolution 
by the Marquess of Aberdeen, the Resolution was 
put to the meeting and carried with acclamation. 



.9] 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Prefatory Note 5 

By the Secretary of the Anglo-American 
Society 

The Study of American History .... 13 
By the Rt Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M. 

Appendix 93 

Relating to the Foundation and Purposes 
of the Sir George Watson Chair of American 
History, Literature, and Institutions, To- 
gether with a Reprint of the Original Cor- 
respondence Relating Thereto 

Index 115 



THE STUDY 

OF 

AMERICAN HISTORY 

JVlY first duty is, if I may venture to 
make myself the spokesman of British 
students of history, to express their 
thanks to the munificent founder of this 
professorial chair, whose enlightened 
vision has discerned what was lacking 
in the provision made for the study of 
American history in England, and who 
has by this foundation gone far to remedy 
that defect. I do not say that we in 
England have studied ancient history, 
or mediaeval history, or modern European 
history too much, but we have studied 
American history too little. How great 
is the gain to be expected from its study 
I shall presently try to indicate. For 

[13] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

the moment let me be content to convey 
to the founder our sense of the great 
service his far-sighted generosity has 
rendered, and to express the confident 
hope that it will begin to bear abundant 
fruit. 

What does American history mean? 
To ask this question is to ask: When 
does American history begin? To that 
question different answers may be given. 
Some will say it begins with the tribes 
who inhabited the North American con- 
tinent from the era of immemorial dark- 
ness, before they came into contact with 
any white men, even with the Icelanders 
who sailed from Greenland in the ship 
of Leif the son of Eric. The only data 
we possess for the study of those pre- 
historic days are to be found in a study 
of the relations between the languages 
of the different aboriginal tribes, and 

[141 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

in the scanty relics which have been 
preserved in their burial places, and 
especially in the great mounds they 
erected in the wide spreading plains 
of the Upper Mississippi. 

Others will fix the beginning of Amer- 
ican history in the earliest age of European 
colonization, that is to say, at the date 
of the enterprise attempted under Ra- 
leigh's auspices at Roanoke in 1585, 
or at the making of effective settlements 
at James Town in Virginia in 1607, and 
on the coast of Massachusetts by the 
Pilgrims in 1620. Many, however, — 
and I suspect they would include more 
than might be expected of the less edu- 
cated citizens of the United States — 
would, if the question were suddenly 
put to them, reply that their history 
began with the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence in 1776, when the peoples of the 

(15] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

Colonies disclaimed the authority of 
the British Crown, and started on their 
career as a group of associated Sovereign 
States. 

All these answers err by thinking of 
the Country rather than of the People 
who inhabit the country. The history 
of the Land belongs to geology. The his- 
tory of the aborigines, such as it is, 
belongs to the sciences of ethnology, 
philology, and folklore, and it is a history 
which has already come to its end. It 
was my good fortune to see the last two 
leading figures among the Indian tribes, 
one of them Sitting Bull, chief of the 
Sioux, in 1883, at the city of Bismarck, 
in Dakota; the other, Geronimo, chief 
of the Apaches of Arizona, at Fort Sell 
in Oklahoma in 1907. There are now 
probably not more than a few thousands 
of aboriginal Indians of pure stock still 

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THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

surviving, and their descendants will 
soon be lost, absorbed into the growing 
white population of the West. The 
Englishmen who landed in Virginia in 
1607, and on the bleaker shores of Massa- 
chusetts thirteen years later, did not 
begin a new history, but continued a 
history which had begun many centuries 
before. When did that old history begin.^^ 
We all remember the phrase with which 
Montesquieu surprised his contemporaries 
when he was describing to them the 
original lines of the English Constitution. 
"Ce beau systeme a ete trouve dans les 
bois." The history of those who settled 
North America began in the forests and 
on the shores of Holstein and East 
Frisia f^r back in days of which we have 
no native record save in mythology and 
poetry, in the worship of Woden and 
Thunor (Thunder) and Freya, and in 

[17] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

the ancient lay of Beowulf. A branch 
of this Teutonic stock conquered East- 
ern, Southern and Central Britain, and 
ultimately, intermingled with the Celtic 
population which they found there, grew 
to be the Enghsh nation, which, by the 
beginning of the seventeenth century, 
was already, for those days, a large 
nation, possibly of four millions, as large 
as the Scottish people or the Swiss 
people are to-day, and smaller than the 
Bulgarians or the Portuguese. It was 
from a tiny body of settlers belonging 
to that Enghsh nation, reinforced by 
later English immigrants, and with the 
addition of some Hollanders, Swedes and 
Germans, that the American nation 
sprang. 

Having already observed that the his- 
tory of a nation is the history of the 
men who compose the nation, and not 

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THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

of their dwelling-place, and that it is, 
therefore, a record of what the men were 
and of what they did, let us consider 
what this includes. It includes, primarily, 
their character; that is to say, the dis- 
tinctive quality of their habits of feeling, 
thinking and acting, and secondarily, 
the institutions, social and political, in 
which those habits found expression. 
Institutions, when sohdified by long prac- 
tice, come to be, because respected and 
valued, a permanent factor in moulding 
and developing character itself. In its 
earliest form the American stock was the 
small branch of a large race dwelUng 
in the North Temperate zone, possessing 
already, in its old home on the European 
continent, certain distinctive gifts and 
qualities unlike those of the neighbouring 
racial stocks, Celtic, Slavonic and Itahc, 
and having also institutions, though still 

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THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

in a rudimentary stage. Julius Caesar 
and Tacitus tell us that there were in 
the Germanic tribes kings honoured for 
their lineage, war-leaders chosen for their 
bravery, and popular assemblies, in which 
the more important decisions were taken. 
We cannot talk of a Germanic Nation, 
but of tribes, branches of a widespread 
race, among them Angles, Jutes and 
Saxons, tribes often at war one with 
another, and as yet without a collective 
national consciousness. When some of 
these tribes settled in Britain, raiding 
northward and westward from the spots 
where their war bands landed, they were 
still no more than the raw material of 
a nation, but they grew in the course of 
centuries to be a national state, and by 
the fourteenth century they had acquired 
a definite type of character, which was 
finding its expression in literature, and 

[20] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

they had also created an elaborate system 
of institutions, including a legislature, 
partly representative, courts administer- 
ing justice throughout the country, an 
executive government, co-operating with, 
yet sometimes in conflict with, the elected 
representatives of the people. Foreign 
observers in the fifteenth century, such 
as Froissart and Aeneas Sylvius Pic- 
colomini (afterwards Pope Pius II) and 
Philip of Comines already talk of the 
English as a people quite unlike the 
peoples of the continent. 

This may be called the second stage 
in the growth of the American nation. 
The third stage begins when an extremely 
small branch is transplanted to a new 
continent. The first migration was from 
a continent to an island, the second was 
from an island to an immense continent. 
In that continent these transplanted 

121] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

Englishmen do not cease to be English, 
but they presently, though very slowly, 
develop into a different kind of English, 
under the new influences which began 
from the first to work upon them. Much 
later, when they were politically separ- 
ated from the British Crown, a new 
name was needed to distinguish them 
from the English who had remained 
behind in the old Mother Land, and so 
the term "American," theretofore em- 
ployed to denote the aboriginal Red 
Men, came to be applied to the English 
of America as being now an independent 
nation. The use of the word made a 
great difference, for words have a curious 
power of implicit suggestion, a power 
inevitable, but often misleading. In this 
case the name did mislead, and has gone 
on misleading. It made the less instructed 
part of the American nation forget the 

122] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

greatness of their spiritual heritage, and 
think of themselves as a new nation, 
when they were really part of an old 
nation to which their forefathers had 
belonged in those very days when it was 
reaching the highest level it has ever 
yet attained in poetry and thought. 
The age which sent Englishmen to settle 
in Virginia and Massachusetts was the age 
of Shakespeare and Spenser and Milton, 
of Bacon and Newton and Harvey, of 
Cromwell and Hampden and Jeremy 
Taylor and John Bunyan, glories of the 
English stock whom Americans have just 
as good a right to claim as has England 
herself. Thus the intellectual, moral 
and religious history of England for 
thirteen centuries, from the landing of 
the Jutish keels at Ebbsfleet in Kent 
in the middle of the fifth century a.d., 
is a part of American history. Whoever 

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THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

forgets this truth will fail to understand 
that history as a whole, in its most 
essential features. 

We may now pass to that third stage 
in which American history begins to 
be the history of America only, i.e. 
of that branch of the English stock which 
came under a new set of influences 
peculiar to the new land, and was at 
the same time removed from some of 
the influences which were thereafter to 
affect the development of that then 
larger branch which, remaining in Britain, 
was in close contact with the European 
continent. But we must remember that 
the connecting influences of literature 
were stiU operative, because the language 
was the same, and all that was thought 
and written on either side of the Atlantic 
told upon men's minds on the other 
side. Bearing this in mind, let us con- 

124] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

sider what were the influences, pecuhar 
to the new continent, which have slowly 
transformed the children of the English 
settlers of the seventeenth century into 
the Americans of the twentieth. 

First, a word or two upon Climate. 
The land in which the immigrants settled 
lay further south than England, yet 
even in the northern part of it the winters 
were colder, though the summers were 
hotter, than in the same latitude in 
Europe. Chmate is not to be measured 
by latitude, and in the northern part 
of the United States other factors, such 
as winds and ocean currents, have so 
moderated the summer heats as to enable 
the old Teutonic stock to remain fully 
as strong and physically vigorous as it 
was when it left its European home. 
Some observers think that the race has 
become more nervously excitable, and 

[25] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

SO more susceptible to new ideas and 
sudden accesses of emotion. Without 
venturing to controvert this view, I 
incHne to beheve that climate has done 
less to modify national character than 
is generally supposed, so far as the 
cooler parts of North America are con- 
cerned. When, however, we regard those 
parts which lie south of latitude 35° N. 
the case is different. Here, except in the 
hill-country, outdoor labour is, not in- 
deed impossible, but unwelcome to a 
northern race. The settlers thought that 
in the regions south of the Potomac and 
the Ohio they must procure some other 
kind of labour than their own to cultivate 
the land, so the example which had been 
set by the Spaniards in the Antilles 
was unfortunately followed. Negroes were 
brought from Africa to work as slaves, 
and thus in the southern colonies there 

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THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

grew up a social system quite different 
from that of the northern regions, in 
which the white owner had been tiUing 
his own farm. When, owing to the 
invention of labour-saving machinery, 
the cultivation of cotton became so 
huge and highly profitable an industry, 
that immense quantities of that fibre 
were thenceforth sent to the markets 
of Europe, the welfare of the inhabitants 
of the South was deemed to be bound 
up with the maintenance of slavery. 
Estates were large, a planting oligarchy 
grew up and controlled politics, the 
humbler part of the white population 
sank into a condition far below that of 
the northern whites. Whether the char- 
acter of the Southern people has been 
permanently affected may be doubted, 
for the old planting aristocracy has 
now almost disappeared, while the poorer 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

element among the whites has risen. 
But it must be confessed that the respect 
felt for justice, law and order was more 
or less temporarily impaired, and the 
habit of lynching has not yet vanished. 
As you all know, the presence of a negro 
population exceeding ten millions re- 
mains a source of trouble and disquiet. 
Another new factor that told upon the 
character of the race in its new home, 
was the absence in the earlier days of 
some of the external apphances of civil- 
ization, and the consequent need imposed 
upon the settler of self-help and individual 
exertion. It was only at intervals that 
attacks by the Indian aborigines were 
to be feared, but Nature has had always 
to be resisted and overcome, and the 
effort to subdue her evoked energy and 
became a spur to invention. To this 
let us add that in the northern states 

[28] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

the settlers found themselves relieved 
from the pressm'e of a territorial aris- 
tocracy such as had maintained social 
inequalities in England. The American 
cultivator, expecially in the north, owned 
his land, and until the middle of the 
nineteenth century no great fortunes 
were amassed in trade or manufacturing 
industry. Conditions so favourable to 
social equality had existed nowhere in 
Europe except in rural Switzerland and 
in Norway. When the great colonizing 
movement to the West began across the 
Alleghany Mountains into the valley 
of the Ohio River and along the shores of 
the Great Lakes, the conditions of the 
first settlers were repeated. Among men 
who find themselves in a wild country, 
where everyone has like difficulties to 
face and needs the help of others, there 
is no room for assumption of superiority, 

[29] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

and each is judged by what he can do. 
Characters are strengthened, resource- 
fulness is developed, and there is also 
induced a sort of recklessness and a 
disregard of conventions which does not 
subside for two or three generations. 
Theodore Roosevelt often said to me 
that the pictures Dickens drew in Martin 
Chuzzlewit of the West as he saw it 
contained a good deal of unpleasant 
truth. 

The political change from a govern- 
ment, nominally monarchical and ad- 
ministered by governors sent from Eng- 
land, to republics whose executive heads 
were elected by the citizens, counted for 
less than did those influences of the new 
country which I have already described, 
because the colonists had long enjoyed 
self-government for most purposes, and 
the main lines of their character were 

130] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

already fixed. Nevertheless, the Revolu- 
tionary war, and the independence it 
won, did make a difference. To have 
(no doubt with the aid of France) 
thrown off the sovereignty of an old 
and powerful state after defeating its 
army, heightened the self-confidence of 
the people. To have done this in the 
name of Liberty, though there had in 
fact been very httle that could be called 
oppression, quickened their march to- 
wards the goal of absolute pohtical 
equality, and gave them a faith in 
abstract principles and high-sounding 
phrases which had theretofore been ab- 
sent from the normal American as from 
the British mind. Faith in liberty would 
have been altogether wholesome and 
inspiriting had it not made the repub- 
licans of the four generations that fol- 
lowed the Revolution forget that there 



31 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

are other powers beside those of kings 
which may threaten Hberty. 

One cannot speak of the great separa- 
tion and all the consequences that fol- 
lowed it, not merely for England and 
America but for the rest of the world, 
without asking what would have hap- 
pened had the political link with Britain 
remained unbroken. Though the colonies 
must, as time went on, have become 
with their growing population even more 
fully self-governing than they had been 
before 1776, they might have continued 
to be united to the mother country so 
far as foreign relations were concerned, 
for the connection would have been for 
the benefit of both, since France and 
Spain still held territories to the south 
of them, and the navy of Britain would 
have served the colonists then as it 
serves Australia and New Zealand to- 

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THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

day. The misfortune was, not so much 
that independence came, as that it came 
in the way it did. None of the current 
assumptions by which enthusiastic op- 
timists beguile themselves has less basis 
than that of beheving the thing which has 
in fact happened to have happened for 
the best in the long run. In 1776 things 
might have happened otherwise, and 
happened far better. England suffered 
from the fact that the English Govern- 
ment was then in weak or unskilful 
hands. There were strong and wise 
statesmen in England, but they were not 
in power. The men who controlled 
affairs were some of them short-sighted 
and incompetent, some of them narrow- 
minded, some of them subservient to a 
perverse and obstinate king. As there 
are moments in history when the presence 
of a great man turns the current of 

[33] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

events and saves the situation, so, also, 
are there times when his absence means 
disaster. Independence, virtual or legal, 
ought to have come gradually and peace- 
fully as the natural result of American 
growth. Coming as the result of a war 
it left bitter memories behind, which 
poisoned the relations of the peoples for 
generations thereafter. Supposing that, 
controversies having been amicably set- 
tled and difficulties adjusted, indepen- 
dence had not come in 1776-1783 let 
us indulge ourselves in a little post- 
prophetic speculation as to what the 
course of events might have been. Would 
there have been a Revolution, in France? 
A collapse of the Bourbon monarchy 
would probably have come, but there 
might have been no volcanic cataclysm 
had there not been in America a success- 
ful proclamation of democratic doctrines 

[34] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

which when they spread to Europe 
brought repubhcanism into the realm of 
actuahty. 

Would the economic development of 
a still colonial America have advanced 
so swiftly as it did under an independent 
repubhc? Would the adventurers who 
streamed forth into the western wilder- 
ness, and built up new states there, 
have been as bold and pushful as were 
the American frontiersmen from 1790 
to 1850? And if development had been 
slower might it not have moved upon 
better lines? Has not the American 
West grown too fast? 

Let us take another point. Might not 
the struggle over slavery from 1820 
onwards have been less hot and angry, 
and been guided to a less terrible denoue- 
ment than that of civil war? Might not 
the influence of the mother country, and 

[351 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

the example which she set in 1834 of 
abohshing slavery in the West Indies 
and South Africa, have brought about a 
peaceful compromise? If the American 
people had not consisted of states claim- 
ing sovereignty though united in a fed- 
eration, but had continued to be divided 
into a number of practically self-govern- 
ing colonies held together by some looser 
tie, each of these would probably have 
solved the problem for itself, on the lines 
it thought best, with the co-operation 
and advice of the rnother country. The 
British government would not have at- 
tempted to interfere with slavery in a 
masterful way, but the public opinion 
of an undivided and impartial British 
people might have been a potent factor, 
suggesting gradual emancipation and the 
best method of attaining it. 

So far the balance of advantage would 

[361 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

seem to incline in favour of a continued 
connection between Britain and the colo- 
nial Americans, just as we in England 
to-day think the connection of the Self- 
Governing Dominions with Britain and 
with one another to be for their interest 
quite as much as for ours. But there is 
an objection fit to be considered. It 
may be said, and it was at one time 
natural to say, that the American Revo- 
lution saved liberty for England as well 
as for America, and at least hastened its 
victory in Continental Europe. As Sir 
George Trevelyan has admirably shown 
in his history of the American Revolu- 
tion, the revolutionary war came near 
to being a sort of civil war in England 
as well as America, and the English 
Whigs of that day held the freedom of 
England to be involved in the struggle. 
A crushing defeat of the revolting col- 

137] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

onies would, doubtless, have been a 
set-back to Whig prospects, but if those 
concessions to the colonists which Chat- 
ham and Burke desired had been made, 
no such result would have followed. 
The forces which were already at work, 
both in Britain and in continental Eu- 
rope, were, as we can now see, far too 
strong to have been overborne by a 
succession of kings like George III, or 
even by a succession of kings hke Fred- 
erick II of Prussia. It is to-day plain 
enough that the extinction by economic 
causes of the relics of feudalism, and 
the disappearance of the old reverence 
on which hereditary monarchy had re- 
lied, would, sooner or later, have over- 
thrown absolute government in France, 
Germany and Italy. 

On the other hand one consideration 
rises to the minds when we regard the 

[38] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

consequences, not merely to the British 
stock, but to the world at large, which 
the continued pohtical union of Britain 
with America might have involved. 

Might not a highly civihzed state 
embracing both the United Kingdom 
and the American people, a state already 
possessing the most powerful navy in 
the world, and spreading out, as it was 
evidently destined to spread, over the 
territories Britain has subsequently ap- 
propriated in the south temperate zone, 
a state dominating the sea, possessed of 
resources in money as well as in men far 
beyond those of any other state in the 
world, — might not such a state have 
become a menace to its neighbours? 
Would not the sense of preponderating 
power have tempted it to abuse that 
power, to seek a world dominance, to 
create an antagonism to itself, such as 

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THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

the Empire of Charles V created in the 
sixteenth and that of Napoleon created 
in the early nineteenth century? These, 
however, are speculations, seductive but 
unsubstantial, and the higher we carry 
the airy edifice, piling hypothesis on 
hypothesis, the more unsteady become 
the upper storeys. I will not try to 
build the edifice higher, content to have 
suggested a topic in which imagination 
may revel at leisure. 

Returning from this digression, let 
me note another influence, which, be- 
ginning about 1830, has ever since de- 
termined the channel in which the ener- 
gies of the American people have tended 
to flow. This is the development, without 
precedent in the annals of mankind, 
of wealth derived from what Nature had 
bestowed on a new and amazingly pro- 
ductive country. During the nineteenth 

[40] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

century immense fertile tracts have been 
brought under cultivation, forests hewn 
down, coal and iron, silver and copper, 
worked on a vast scale, while the trans- 
port of these products to the Atlantic 
coast has provided employment for hun- 
dreds of thousands and, latterly, for 
millions of workers. Nearly all the more 
vigorous minds in the nation were drawn 
to a business hfe and pohtics suffered, 
partly by the greater attraction business 
exerted, partly by the habit, which 
preoccupation with commercial interests 
fostered, of leaving pohtics to be man- 
aged by pohticians. The large-minded 
thinkers who adorned the last years of 
the eighteenth century left few successors. 
Most of the brilliant hterary group that 
gave lustre to the middle of the nine- 
teenth, were born before 1830. That 
development of the universities which 



41 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

has rendered inestimable services to 
America since 1880 had scarcely begun. 
These causes made the material progress 
of America run ahead of its progress 
in letters and arts, though there was no 
diminution in the total volume of in- 
tellectual force which the nation pos- 
sessed. 

Now let us turn to another phenom- 
enon of supreme consequence in its 
ultimate influence on the population of 
the United States. Immigration from 
Europe, which had gone on steadily 
though slowly from the middle of the 
seventeenth century, suddenly grew in 
volume when the middle of the nine- 
teenth was reached. It has not sensibly 
affected the States with a very large 
coloured population, viz. those that lie 
south of the Potomac and east of the 
Lower Mississippi, but in the North 

[42] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

and West it has reached vast dimensions. 
This increase was, at first, chiefly due 
to an outflow from Ireland, where famine 
was raging. Twenty years later it ex- 
panded still further by the arrival of 
new immigrant swarms from Germany 
and the Scandinavian countries. Still 
later, between 1880 and 1890, another 
flood began to sweep in from Central 
and Western Europe, and even from 
Western Asia. While Irishmen had con- 
gregated in the larger cities, the Germans, 
Swedes and Norwegians went to settle 
on the land. Nearly all of these last, 
either already knowing or easily learning 
the EngHsh language, soon intermingled 
with the native American population, 
and were absorbed into it, acquiring 
American habits of thought and action. 
German as weU as the Irish immigration 
had shrunk to small dimensions before 

[43] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

1914, for the German government was 
trying to retain its subjects, while the 
population of Ireland had so much dimin- 
ished, and its economic condition had 
so much improved, as to reduce the 
tendency to expatriation. Both the Celtic 
and the Teutonic stocks were already 
present in the United States, for both 
had gone to the making of the British 
race, so that no great change in the 
essential racial qualities of American 
character, as it had existed among the 
early colonists, followed the influx of 
these new Celts and Teutons. But the 
later arrival of such races as Slavs and 
Italians, Russian and Polish Jews, Greeks 
and Roumans altered the case. They 
brought entirely new strains of blood 
into the stock. They were comparatively 
uneducated, coming from the lower social 
strata in their respective countries, and 

[44] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

were for the most part untrained in self- 
government. Very few spoke English, 
and as they settled in huge blocks, 
mostly in large industrial centres, they 
were less readily assimilated. What dif- 
ference then has their coming made in 
the character and habits of the American 
people? 

In economic, social, and political life, 
some results are already visible. Those 
newcomers, who now form the bulk 
of the unskilled labourers in the northern 
half of the United States, have plenty 
of native intelligence, and a few men of 
conspicuous talent have already risen 
from their ranks. But being ignorant 
and prone to fall under the influence 
either of foreign propagandists, or of 
leaders of their own race, they are easily 
drawn into industrial strife, and are 
more disposed to violence than are the 

[45] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

native Americans. When they acquire 
votes and are enrolled in a political 
party, their inexperience throws them 
into the hands of their chiefs, and makes 
them an element whose power it is hard 
to calculate either in elections or when 
labour troubles arise. But — and this 
is the point to be noted by foreign ob- 
servers — they are still unassimilated, and 
have not yet had time to affect what 
may be called the normal type of the 
American people. It remains to be seen 
how soon, and in what way, they will 
affect it. 

Here we are met by a question which 
has never arisen before either on so 
great a scale, or under conditions which 
enable it to be so carefully observed, 
a question needing examination by physi- 
ologists and anthropologists as well as 
by historians. There have been many 

(46] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

cases of race intermixture, but in ex- 
tremely few of these have we statistical 
records sufficient to furnish data for 
scientific conclusions. The problem may 
be stated as follows: When two or more 
races mix their blood what is the com- 
parative importance of blood, i.e. of 
Heredity, on the one hand, and of En- 
vironment on the other, in determining 
the quality of the race which arises 
from the mixture? In the United States 
the child of Italian or Czech parents 
grows up ignorant but intelligent, un- 
trained to anything but hand labour, 
yet inheriting certain inborn tendencies 
and propensities, and possibly, also, draw- 
ing from his parents certain beliefs and 
habits. The boy goes to an American 
school, where he imbibes the ideas and 
imitates the ways of the American youth 
around him, and as he grows up reads 

[471 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

the same newspapers, hears the same 

talk. Unless his parents are well-educated 

persons, he is eager to forget their race 

and to become immediately, and for all 

purposes, an American and nothing but 

an American. He waves the Stars and 

Stripes, he sings in the class: 

My country, 'tis of thee 
Sweet land of liberty . . . 

with more effusion than if his ancestors 
had come over in the 'Mayflower.' 
Yet. the blood remains. He is not, he 
cannot make himself, altogether an Amer- 
ican, divesting himself of the parental 
tendencies, of the emotional excitabihty 
of the Czech, or the impulsiveness of 
the Itahan. To what extent then will 
these racial qualities pass into and modify 
the American mass.^^ How far will a 
crowd, twenty per cent, of which is of 
Polish or Greek or Jewish parentage, 

[481 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

differ from a native American crowd? 
When three generations have passed, 
how far will the population of any city, 
one-half of the blood in whose veins 
comes from East European sources, feel, 
think, and act differently from the way 
in which the people in that city felt, 
thought and acted thirty years ago, 
say in 1880, before the East European 
flood had swollen? The city was then 
four-fifths Enghsh, the rest North Euro- 
pean or Irish. In 1960 not more than a 
half will be of Enghsh blood, but all 
will be English-speaking, and permeated 
by American influences. Though no one 
can answer the question I am putting, 
this much at least may be said. There 
has never been anywhere an environ- 
ment of more pervasive and compulsive 
power than that into which the immigrant 
is plunged when he lands in America. 

[49] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

He seems to melt in it as a lump of sugar 
melts in a cup of tea. Yet one cannot 
but believe that the influence of heredity 
remains. If we discern racial traits in 
the individual man, and explain points 
in his character by saying he has a 
strain of Greek or Polish or Jewish blood, 
must not the inherited quality of the in- 
dividuals modify the quahty of the mass.^^ 
The question can never be fully an- 
swered, because causes other than hered- 
ity are always modifying national char- 
acter from one age to another. When, 
sixty years hence, observers compare 
the character of the American of 1980 
with that of the American of 1880, it 
will be impossible to determine how 
much of the change is due to this par- 
ticular cause. The character of a nation, 
like that of an individual, is always 
undergoing changes, too subtle to be 

(501 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

discernible at any given moment, but 
evident after the lapse of years. They 
are retarded or accelerated in the political 
sphere by the presence or absence of 
the institutions and traditions which 
are continually educating and forming 
men's habits of thought and action, 
making the habits flow in certain chan- 
nels and deepening those channels. But 
it must be remembered that institutions 
themselves are always changing, if not 
in their form yet in the manner of their 
working. Nothing can arrest either decay 
or growth except death, and health 
consists in the power of always eliminating 
the dying tissues and replacing them by 
those in which life is vigorous. 

Thoughtful men in America are dis- 
quieted when they see under their eyes 
a change passing upon the elements in 
the population far greater than has ever 

[51] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

passed before upon the English stock 
since it first came to Britain in the fifth 
century of our era. Some fear a per- 
manent injury to the moral, perhaps 
also to the intellectual quahty of the 
stock. Others believe that the power of 
Kterature and education and the old tradi- 
tions of the nation will preserve what is 
best in the essentials of character. Uncer- 
tain as the future is, one who has watched 
the process during many years finds reason 
for sharing the more hopeful belief. 

Having considered the character of 
the American nation as modified by 
American conditions we may proceed 
to its concrete manifestations. Sahent 
features will stand out when we note 
what the people have produced and how 
they have faced the crises that have 
arisen in their career. 

The Constitution of the United States, 

(521 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

drafted in 1787 and set to work in 1789, 
may be deemed the greatest single con- 
tribution ever made to Government as 
an applied science. It was less original 
than some of its foreign admirers have 
supposed, for the best of its arrange- 
ments were not fire-new, but drawn 
partly from the constitutional laws and 
usages of England, partly from the Con- 
situtions of the several States, which 
were themselves modifications of the 
laws and usages under which the States 
had been living when they were colonies. 
But the structural provisions embodied 
in the Federal Constitution were so 
well selected from the materials which 
lay before the framers, and were so 
skilfuUy fitted together to form a com- 
pact whole, firm yet elastic, capable 
of bearing the strain which changing 
circumstances might impose, that the 

[53] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

authors of the Constitution deserve all 
the praise they have received. The 
parts of that famous document which 
experience has most emphatically ap- 
proved are the sections which create 
the federal system, and which guard 
its working by assigning to an impartial 
and technically competent tribunal the 
function of expounding what the mind 
and will of people probably were, and 
must, anyhow, be taken to have been, 
when they enacted the fundamental in- 
strument. A federation which was cre- 
ated for thirteen States, covering an 
area of 335,000 square miles, with a 
population of about 3,000,000, has been 
made applicable with far less friction 
than could have been expected to forty- 
eight States, covering an area ten times, 
and a population thirty-six times as 
large. This system has been taken as a 

154] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

model by every country that has since 
its date adopted a federal scheme of 
government, including not only the Re- 
publics of Spanish- America, but also 
Switzerland, Canada and Australia, and 
also, in a less degree, South Africa and 
the present RepubHc of Germany. 

Less successful, yet, when we consider 
the difficulties to be overcome, hardly 
less skilfully constructed, has been that 
part of the Constitution which deter- 
mines the relations of the two chief 
departments of the National Govern- 
ment — the Legislature and the Execu- 
tive. No frame of government made 
to be worked in a large country has ever 
succeeded, except for short periods, in 
adjusting these relations so as to combine 
efficiency, promptitude and safety. The 
most successful was, probably, the scheme 
of British Government as it worked for 

[55] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

the half century which followed the 
Reform Act of 1832. Comparing that 
scheme with the American scheme we 
may say that the British excelled in a 
concentration of power which permitted 
swift and decided action, while the merit 
of the American consisted in the safe- 
guards it provided against ill-considered 
action or the usurpation by either de- 
partment of the proper functions of the 
other. The one system was built for 
speed, the other for safety. One provided 
a method by which decisions can be 
reached with the minimum of delay, 
the other a method which averts the 
risk of decisions not representing the 
true and dehberately considered will 
of the majority of the people. The British 
method is forced to take the risk that 
decisions may be wrong, the American 
method the risk that decisions may be 

[56] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

dangerously delayed. The capital in- 
stance of the latter fault may be found 
in the controversy which so long harassed 
America regarding the extension of slav- 
ery. The National Government tried 
for forty years to settle this question, 
but no settlement could be reached, 
and the result was civil war. Enghsh 
critics used to think this a fatal blot, 
and praised the efficiency of their own 
system, but they have latterly come to 
perceive that their own frame of govern- 
ment may succeed no better. The British 
Parliamentary System has for more than 
eighty years failed to settle a question less 
formidable, indeed, but always threaten- 
ing strife and deranging the proper 
working of its own machinery, that of 
securing peace and good government in 
Ireland. Each country has to admit 
some failures, and neither country is 

(571 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

likely to part with its own scheme to 
adopt that of the other country. Each 
would prefer to steer its course among 
the rocks and shoals which it has learnt 
to know, rather than to venture into 
what is for it the uncharted sea of the 
other. Whatever may be the merits 
of the British system for a nation which 
inhabits a comparatively small area, 
few will think that this system would 
suit a people more than twice as numerous, 
and occupying a territory more than 
fifty times as large. 

The framers of the American Constitu- 
tion have been blamed for leaving open 
the question whether any state had a 
right to secede from the Union, since 
this unsettled point ultimately provided 
an occasion for a civil war in which 
both sides had what lawyers call an 
"arguable case." But it must be re- 

158] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

membered that if the framers had tried 
to determine that question in advance, 
there would have been no Constitu- 
tion at all. State feehng was so strong 
in 1787-8 that a denial of state sover- 
eignty would have led to the rejection 
of the Constitution when it was pre- 
sented for adoption to the peoples of 
the States, while on the other hand, 
to have recognized state sovereignty 
so far as to permit secession, would have 
been to open a door to the very evil 
it was desired to avoid. As prudent 
statesmen, they thought it better to 
take the chance that a right neither 
admitted nor denied would ever be exer- 
cised, than to invite the immediate 
failure of their efforts. Their hope, 
though falsified by the event, was at 
the time a reasonable hope, and we cannot 
blame their choice. 

1591 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

Another criticism made on the struc- 
ture of the American National Govern- 
ment deserves a passing word because 
one of its features has from time to 
time had unfortunate results on diplo- 
matic relations with other countries. 
The provision made for the conduct of 
foreign affairs has been charged with in- 
efficiency because, while the function of 
negotiating with foreign countries is left 
to the Executive, the confirmation of 
executive action and the approval of 
treaties rest with one branch of the 
legislature, the Federal Senate. The result 
of this division of powers is, that, though 
the President can in practice so handle 
foreign relations as to manoeuvre or 
precipitate the nation into hostilities, 
he cannot conclude a binding agreement 
with any other country. He can bring 

[601 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

about war, but he cannot make peace. 
The benefits of a well-conducted nego- 
tiation may be lost because the Senate 
may refuse to approve, and a deadlock 
may result, involving the loss of a treaty 
on which infinite pains have been spent. 
Foreign nations find this situation em- 
barrassing. They may bargain and com- 
promise, and make one concession after 
another, and yet discover at last that 
all their efforts have been wasted. But 
they are not entitled to complain, because 
they must be taken to know the pro- 
visions of the Federal Constitution, and 
these provisions may be justified on 
the ground that an Executive which 
holds office for a fixed term cannot be 
entrusted with powers as wide as those 
which England allows to an Executive 
holding office from day to day at the 

[611 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

pleasure of Parliament. A President may 
err, by precipitancy, or because he mis- 
takes the mind of the People, so it was 
thought needful to limit his authority. 
In England it may happen that an 
Administration which negotiates with 
foreign states can, if it keeps its negotia- 
tions secret, bring the nation to a point 
where it must accept arrangements which 
it would, if left free, be disposed to 
condemn. Neither America nor England 
has yet come near to solving the problem 
how foreign affairs should be conducted 
and treaties concluded in conformity 
with the will of the people. The difficulty 
lies in the nature of the case, and par- 
ticularly in the fact that in no country 
is public opinion sufficiently informed to 
exert the power which of right belongs 
to it. The case for popular control of 
diplomacy is irrefragable in theory, but 

(621 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

theory presupposes a fuller knowledge 
of the facts by the people than any people 
has yet been able to acquire. 

Before I pass from the Federal Con- 
stitution let me note three occasions 
on which its strength and flexibility 
were tested. One was seen in 1834, when 
a new set of men, less educated and more 
reckless than their predecessors, came 
into the control of affairs with the acces- 
sion to the Presidency of Andrew Jack- 
son. Had not the respect for the Con- 
stitution and the methods of working 
it been by that time fairly well settled, 
there would have been a serious dis- 
location of the machinery. Serious evils 
did, in fact, follow, but the ship rode 
out the storm and calmer weather re- 
turned after a while. On the other two 
occasions, under the pressure of civil 
war in 1861-5, and of a foreign war in 

[63] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

1917-19, some provisions of the Con- 
stitution were practically suspended 
though, perhaps, not legally violated. 
But on both occasions when the stress 
had passed and normal conditions re- 
turned, the Constitution was seen to 
have sprung no leaks. 

I have mentioned the War of Secession, 
and as it is one of the great events of 
American history, two lessons may be 
noted which a study of its course sug- 
gests. One of these is the danger of 
ignoring or trying to override the per- 
manent tendencies of human nature. 
As we see the matter to-day, it was not 
only a crime, but a blunder to bring 
the negro from Africa and to force him 
to work as a slave in the midst of a 
community of freemen. This blunder, 
committed before there was any inde- 
pendent America, is chargeable rather 

164] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

on England than on the early colonists, 
though it was the children of the latter 
that had to suffer for it.^ Without it 
there would have been no Civil War, 
and the Southern States would to-day 
be free from a problem whose solution 
is not yet within sight and whose diffi- 
culties have been aggravated by the 
attempt made to deal with the question 
when the Civil War ended. This was 
the second blunder. The Federal Con- 
stitution was in 1868 and 1870 so amended 
as to confer the electoral franchise upon 
the recently hberated negroes. Wholly 
unfitted to exercise the franchise with 
advantage to themselves, the coloured 
people fell under the control of white 
adventurers, many of them disreputable, 

iThe efforts of the Colonial Assemblies of Virginia to 
stop the Slave Trade were frequently baffled by selfish 
interests powerful with the British Government. 

165] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

who, since the white population of the 
states that had seceded were excluded 
from the suffrage, enjoyed a free field 
for robbery and jobbery, and played 
havoc with administration and finance, 
holding their power by negro votes. 
After a few years the southern whites, 
readmitted to the suffrage, recovered 
control, and thereafter, partly by force, 
partly by electoral frauds, and ultimately 
by a series of adroit legal contrivances, 
they regained a mastery which they have 
continued to maintain. The attempt to 
bestow poHtical power on Africans, 
ninety-five per cent, of whom were un- 
fitted by capacity and training to use 
it, had the result which ought to have 
been foreseen. It exasperated the whites, 
it injured the negroes, it has perpetuated 
trouble, and has, indeed, increased the 
friction between the races. Abstract 

[661 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

theory and emotional sympathy for those 
who had suffered in time past had led 
the Northern statesmen to disregard the 
teacliings of Nature. But Nature pre- 
vailed against theory. It may be true 
that optimism, taken all round, is better 
than pessimism, and it is obviously 
true that sentiment cannot be neglected 
as a factor in human affairs. Yet op- 
timism and sentiment will always have 
their dangers. We see many experiments 
advocated to-day, and some actually 
tried, not less hazardous than that which 
the sanguine spirit of Congress attempted 
in the days of reconstruction after the 
calm wisdom of Abraham Lincoln had 
been withdrawn. How easily do men 
persuade themselves of what they wish 
to believe! 

If the end of the War of Secession was 
marked by one great error, it was marked 

[671 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

-\ also by one act of supreme wisdom. 
Never was a civil war followed by so 
little severity towards the vanquished. 
Though the victorious North had talked 
of the seceding Southerners as rebels, 
all sensible men felt how far from or- 
dinary treason their action had been. 
No one was put to death for any political 
offence. Trials, to be followed by im- 
prisonment, were talked of, but were 
put off with the tacit consent of the 
nation till they silently vanished away. 
So soon as fighting had ceased, bitter 
memories began to die out in the North, 
and presently they died out in the South 
also. I remember how, when General 
Sherman, in the course of whose march 
through Georgia the city of Atlanta had 
been destroyed by fire, came thither on 
an official visit less than twenty years 
afterwards, a leading citizen of Atlanta 

[681 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

observed that the people of the city 
were glad to see the General though he 
was known to be rather heedless in the 
use of lucifer matches ! It used to be said 
that the only Southerners who bore 
memories of the war were the two classes 
who had not borne arms — the clergy and 
the women. The reconciliation has now 
been complete, and the whole American 
nation is so reunited that from 1912 to 
1914 the children of those who fought in 
the Northern armies and of those who had 
fought in the Southern armies, with the few 
veterans who had survived from the war 
itself, met to celebrate their own or 
their fathers' deeds of valour fifty years 
before on batttlefields now marked by 
monuments which all ahke honour. This, 
also, is a lesson to be pondered by 
statesmen whose vision is keen enough 
to look beyond the dust and smoke of 

169] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

recent conflicts to days to come, though 
perhaps still distant, when each people 
in Europe will be peaceful and prosperous 
in proportion to the confidence which it 
can inspire in its neighbours, and the 
goodwill it can feel towards them. 
v^ Time fails me to speak of other aspects 
^~of American history which deserve the 
special attention of the student. No- 
where in the modern world have economic 
issues exercised so potent an influence on 
politics. Nowhere has the problem of 
setting bounds to the power of commercial 
combinations and of the monopolies 
which combinations create, given so much 
trouble to legislators. Nowhere has party 
organisation been developed to such dan- 
gerous perfection. But each of these 
subjects would furnish materials for a 
treatise. It is enough to call the attention 
of Europeans to the wealth of material 

170] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

which American experience furnishes upon 
these and other questions which perplex, 
and some of which threaten, the welfare 
of civilized states. On one topic, how- 
ever, I must dwell for a moment, because 
though it was once so familiar as to 
have become hackneyed, the present 
generation has begun to forget it. For 
nearly a century after American inde- 
pendence had been recognized in 1783, 
at a time when nearly the whole European 
continent was controlled by arbitrary 
governments, America stood forth to 
the world as the sanctuary of freedom. 
To the oppressed peoples she rose as the 
bright vision of a land where no man 
need tremble before king or priest, an 
Elysium of the West like that described 
in the Odyssey, where, far beyond the 
sundering ocean, fresh breezes of liberty 
were always blowing to refresh the hecirts 

(71] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

of men. That preeminent distinction 
it has ceased to hold. Freedom has now 
spread all over Europe. The Marxian 
Communists have indeed now begun 
to paint America in the blackest colours, 
as a land where the power of wealth 
grinds the poor, and for whose evils 
there remains no remedy except revolu- 
tion. If the lines with which fancy decked 
it out were too bright a century ago, 
still further from the truth are the 
denunciations which it now receives. 
The sober judgment of history will al- 
ways honour the founders of the Republic, 
and the people who have brought their 
Republic safe through many trials, for 
one supreme example which they gave 
to the world when it was sadly needed. 
America has shown that it is possible 
to have a government of the people 
for the people on a scale of unprece- 

[72] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

dented magnitude, a scale undreamt of 
by earlier generations. In all the nations 
of the Old World the habit of obedience 
to constituted authority came down from 
the ages when monarchs reigned by 
force, and by the awe which force in- 
spired. Subjects obeyed because their 
forefathers had obeyed, and because 
armies were maintained to compel obe- 
dience. When, as in France in 1792, and 
in Russia in our own day, physical 
force failed, and authority was no longer 
defended by the spell of reverence, there 
succeeded first a short spell of anarchy, 
and thereafter a force still more brutal 
and ruthless than that by which the 
old dynasties had reigned. So too the 
countries of Spanish-America, though 
they called themselves Republics, showed 
for many a year after they had won 
independence, what happens when an 

[73] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

obedience based only on fear and tradition 
has suddenly disappeared. But among 
the English of America the habit of 
respecting law and valuing order, though 
at some moments and in some places 
shaken, was never broken. When the 
time-hallowed authority of a monarch 
died out of the sky like waning moon- 
light, the authority of the people rose, as 
the sun rises to rule the day. As the 
nation swelled in volume, the difficulty 
of maintaining order in huge populations 
scattered over vast spaces seemed to 
grow greater. But the sense that law 
as the foundation of order is the guardian 
of common welfare, grew with the na- 
tion's growth. A national government 
whose physical power was represented 
by an army of less than one in a thousand 
of the population exercised an authority 
greater because less contested than author- 

(74] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

ity had ever held in the despotisms of the 
Old World. The steady march of the 
national government became so famihar 
that men wondered at it no more than 
the rustic wonders at the unchanging 
procession across the nightly heavens 
of the constellations which he has seen 
since childhood. But those who have 
studied human nature, and have seen 
what havoc ignorance and passion can 
work, and how infinitely hard it has been 
to bring men to comprehend what is 
really their common good and work 
together for it, will marvel at America's 
achievement and deem it one of the 
longest steps in the march of social 
progress that mankind has yet taken. If 
ever those moral forces which have led 
more than a hundred milhons of men, 
filling a vast continent, to obey that 
common will which they have provided 

(75] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

peaceful means for ascertaining, if ever 
these forces that have created and pre- 
served the sense of common duty and 
common interest, should show signs of 
decay, what hope would remain for the 
world? Freedom in America, as else- 
where, has been at some moments abused, 
at others undermined or filched away: 
but the pride in freedom and the trust 
in the saving and heahng power of 
freedom have never failed her people, 
and have enabled them many a time 
to recover what they seemed to be losing. 
It is by the moral forces that nations 
live. Moribus aniiquis slat res Romana 
virisque. 

Let me in conclusion touch briefly 
upon some of the causes which make a 
full and just conception of the problems 
with which the American people have 
grappled, and of such solutions as they 

[76] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

have found, soecially valuable to English- 
men. 

What is history but a record of experi- 
ments? Each country studies, and, if 
it is wise, endeavours to profit by the 
experiments which other countries try. 
Now the value of experiments varies with 
the similarity of the conditions under 
which any given experiment has been 
tried to those of the country which seeks 
to profit by the experiment. The more 
closely the two sets of conditions re- 
semble one another the better entitled 
are we to draw conclusions and attempt 
predictions. Hence, Britain can profit 
better by the experience of America 
than can any other country, because 
the institutions and social life of the 
two nations are based upon old founda- 
tions, similar in their origin. Not only 
the institutions and laws, but also the 

[771 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

conceptions of those things which con- 
stitute the values of Ufe are just suffi- 
ciently different to make us feel their 
essential likeness. An EngHshman can 
in discussing any question with an Amer- 
ican assume as a common starting point 
certain moral and intellectual axioms 
which he cannot assume in the case of 
any other people. The fact that neither 
people calls the other "foreigners" speaks 
for itself. 

This idea may be put in another way. 
History has for its subject human nature. 
It is the record of what man has thought, 
said and done. It is the lamp by whose 
light we see human nature in action, 
and we can understand the causes, the 
significance, the results of events in 
proportion to our comprehension of the 
characters of the men or the nations 
concerned. When the records of man's 

[781 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

doings in the ancient world or the medi- 
aeval world perplex us, this happens 
because we are so unlike the men of 
those days that we fail to appreciate 
their motives, and those mental quahties 
which are now (rather loosely) called 
their "psychology." So, Hkewise, when 
we try to follow events passing in other 
countries we are apt to err from want 
of understanding the minds and impulses 
of, say, Russians or Arabs or Chinese. 
This is one of the great difficulties in 
the conduct of foreign relations. Dip- 
lomatists, if keenly observant, come to 
know the minds of the men among whom 
they are cast. Statesmen at home know 
less, and suffer for it, while the mass of 
the people is often quite at sea, because 
it misconceives foreign ways of thought. 
It has been truly said that no people 
has ever quite understood another. Thus 

(791 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

the average man, having no means for 
judging the feelings and behaviour of 
foreigners, is the victim of any mis- 
statements or misrepresentations made 
by pohticians or the press, and, conse- 
quently, each people wrongs other peoples 
and is indignant when it is wronged by 
others. When, as usually happens, one 
nation takes its impression of its neigh- 
bours from their government and their 
politicians, its judgments are pretty sure 
to be harsh. Moreover, each people 
thinks of the other in terms of the ma- 
jority of that other, not knowing or 
caring to know how large or small a 
majority may be, or how many cross- 
currents may be running through the 
public opinion of the other. All this is 
inevitable, but the resulting judgments 
are so often erroneous and even unjust, 
that everything possible ought to be 

[801 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

done to enable each nation to look 
behind or through the government of 
another into the real feehng and wishes 
of its neighbour nations. 

Now, just as the experiments made by 
America are more profitable to English- 
men than are those made by other 
countries, so also it is easier for us, if 
we take a little pains, to understand 
American minds and feeHngs than to 
understand those of any other people. 
Reciprocal comprehension is, of course, 
best attained by the largest possible 
personal intercourse. The more Amer- 
icans come to England and the more 
Englishmen go to America, the better 
for both. But as it is impossible for more 
than an extremely small percentage of 
each people to create by this means a 
genuine mutual comprehension of each 
by the other, the next best thing is for 

[81] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

each to learn as much as it can about 
the history of the other. Here, again, it 
is only a small percentage that has the 
time and capacity for learning from his- 
tory, but that small percentage ought 
to include the leading minds, and espe- 
cially the public teachers, speakers and 
writers of each country. With them it 
Hes to form and guide public opinion in 
their respective countries. If the Enghsh- 
men on whom this function devolves 
address themselves more largely than 
heretofore to the study of American 
history, and acquire from it an insight 
into the character and tendencies of 
the American people, they will be far 
better able to judge current events, 
and escape from the atmosphere of mis- 
representation or exaggeration, or honest 
misconception, which most of them have 
been obliged to breathe. The use of a 

182] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

common language does not necessarily 
conduce to friendship; rather is it often 
a source of bitterness, because the un- 
friendly things which are said in one 
country are carelessly or even maliciously 
propagated and diffused in the other. 
Knowledge, however, though it does not 
always make for goodwill, is yet always 
better than ignorance, for it may be 
extended and perfected. It is anyhow, 
even if less than perfect, the only founda- 
tion on which a sound judgment can be 
based. 

Without stopping to dwell upon the 
advantages, material as well as spiritual, 
which the friendship of the two nations 
would secure for both, I will pass to a 
wider aspect of the situation. In these 
days, no Englishmen can think of Anglo- 
American relations merely in their effect 
upon his own country. Every view will 

(83] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

be deceptive as well as defective which 
does not take in the other great peoples. 
We must learn to think in world terms. 
Now the growth of the Enghsh-speaking 
races is the most significant phenomenon 
of the last hundred years. That growth 
continues, and is hkely to continue. It 
would be folly as well as presumptuous 
vanity for members of our stock to 
undervalue the contributions made to 
thought and letters, science and art, 
which the other leading peoples, and 
especially those of France, Germany and 
Italy, have made and are making. These 
contributions have been in some directions 
as great or greater than our own. But it 
is the EngHsh language that has spread 
and is spreading most rapidly. It is the 
Enghsh-speaking peoples that have grown 
and are growing most rapidly in wealth 
and population, and that now conduct 

(841 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

or control most of the commerce of the 
world. Their influence upon the world 
at large is, therefore, more potent than 
that of any other racial stock, and that 
influence would, if directed to the same 
ends, make a difference to world progress 
greater than any other influence could 
exert. I ask you to think not merely 
of political influence, though that is a 
form of action the power of which is most 
apparent and most calculable, but to 
consider also another kind of action, 
that which the opinion, the thought and 
the example of English-speaking men, 
wherever they dwell, be it in the United 
States or in Britain, in Canada or Aus- 
tralia or New Zealand, may exert upon 
the thoughts and purposes of civilized 
mankind. I treat that opinion as a 
single concrete entity, because the pos- 
session of a common language, common 

185] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

habits of thought, common fundamental 
axioms of conduct, together with the 
fact that whatever is written by the 
best minds in any part of the Enghsh- 
speaking world affects the best minds of 
the other parts, does give a kind of 
unity to the mind of English-speaking 
men which overrides all diversities among 
them. Differences of view will, of course, 
always exist inside each political com- 
munity, and the views held by the ma- 
jority in one community may sometimes 
be opposed to the views held by the 
majority in another, but just as these 
diversities do not prevent, but rather 
tend to develop and improve by inter- 
mixture and debate, the progress of 
opinion in any one country, so will 
they act in the English-speaking world 
as a whole, each people contributing 
to the progress of thought in the other. 

[86] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

It may be said that this akeady happens 
as between all civilized nations, since 
they now stand in a "touch" with one 
another that is closer than ever before. 
But language counts for much. The 
common language and the common prin- 
ciples — what I have called the axioms 
of conduct — bring the different English- 
speaking peoples nearer to one another 
than to any other people or stock. Regard 
them as a community in the widest 
sense, and suppose its general opinion 
to be playing round such large questions 
as those of the maintenance or reduction 
of armaments, the protection of native 
races, the freedom or restriction of eco- 
nomic intercourse between states, the 
extension or narrowing of the functions 
of government, and the many projects 
now discussed for the organization of 
industry by legal or extra legal methods, 

[87] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

and further, suppose the experiments 
tried by each of the several members 
of the vast Enghsh-speaking community 
to be closely watched and studied by 
the other members, may we not beUeve 
that the intellectual and moral influence 
of that opinion upon the world at large 
would be far greater than any one nation 
has exercised since the dissolution of the 
Roman Empire? Now the first step 
towards the formation of such an opinion 
must be the fuller knowledge, the more 
perfect comprehension by each English- 
speaking people of the mind and purposes 
of the other, not necessarily for the 
purposes of joint political action, how- 
ever desirable that may on some occasions 
be, but in the broadly fraternal spirit 
which seeks the welfare of all mankind. 
It is in the development of intellectual 
and moral sympathy rather than in 

[88] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

formal alliances, unions often unstable 
and sometimes exciting jealousy or sus- 
picion in other nations, that we may find 
the kind of co-operation which will best 
promote that welfare. 

We see to-day an old world, a world 
weary of the past, distracted on this side 
of the Atlantic by a strife which per- 
petuates itself in creating fresh wrongs 
that breed fresh resentments and re- 
vengeful passions. The time has surely 
come when a supreme effort should be 
made to inspire in the most enlightened 
and far-sighted minds in all the peoples 
a spirit of goodwill which may replace 
international hatreds by a sense of com- 
mon interests and a vision of the bless- 
ings concord may bring. The goal may 
be distant, but it is a splendid goal, 
one towards which we are bound to 
strive. 

[89] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

I have spoken of American history 
as a part of the history of the Enghsh- 
speaking community of peoples. It is 
the history of that branch which is now 
the largest, the richest and the least 
assailable from without, yet whose for- 
tunes are indissolubly Unked with those 
of all the others. Through its three cen- 
turies of life in the Western hemisphere 
it has retained that boldness and resource- 
fulness and tenacity of purpose which 
belonged to the ancient stock that came 
from the Elbe to the Thames and from 
the Thames to the Hudson and onward 
to the Mississippi. It has cherished high 
ideals and holds fast to them still. Will 
it not be in days to come the glory 
of the free English-speaking peoples, 
to whom Providence has given the 
widest influence, and therewith the 
greatest responsibility, that any group 

[90] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

of peoples has ever received, if they 
should join in using that influence to 
guide the feet of all mankind into the 
way of peace. 



191] 



APPENDIX 

ORIGIN OF THE 
SIR GEORGE WATSON CHAIR 

In 1911, when it was preparing its 
Programme for the Celebration of the 
Centenary of the Treaty of Ghent (1814- 
1914) and of the completion of One 
Hundred Years of Peace among Enghsh- 
speaking Peoples, the British-American 
Peace Centenary Committee (which had 
the arrangements in hand for Great 
Britain) turned its attention to the 
provision of adequate teaching of Amer- 
ican History in British Universities. 

It discovered that no British Univer- 
sity made definite and adequate provision 
for such teaching. There was no Uni- 
versity in the British Isles which had 
either a Chair or Lectureship of American 

(93] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

History. This very grave deficiency in 
our educational apparatus the Committee 
determined to supply; and it placed the 
Foundation of a Chair of American 
History amongst the foremost articles of 
its Programme for the Celebration. 

The outbreak of the Great War pre- 
vented the carrying out of this Programme 
more than in part; and before the War 
was over the British-American Peace 
Centenary Committee had been dis- 
solved, handing over its functions to two 
allied and affiHated organizations which 
grew out of it — the Sulgrave Institution 
and the Anglo-American Society. 

In 1919 the Anglo-American Society 
revived the project of a Chair of American 
History as the first item of its national 
British programme for the Celebration 
of the Tercentenary of the 'Mayflower' 
and the Pilgrim Fathers; and in the last 

[941 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

month of that year the generosity and 
pubhc spirit of Sir W. George Watson, 
Bart., provided the means to reaUse 
this long-cherished plan. 

In the date of its foundation the Watson 
Chair has the honour of being the first 
Chair of American History established 
in the British Isles. 

The correspondence relating to its 
foundation, between Sir George Watson, 
H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught (Presi- 
dent of the Anglo-American Society) 
and H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, is 
reprinted hereafter, for purposes of record. 
The warmth of the public reception of 
Sir George Watson's benefaction, and 
the appreciation of its international and 
educational significance, is illustrated by 
the extracts from leading articles in 
prominent London journals which are 
also reprinted. 

195] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

The foundation fund of the Watson 
Chair has been invested by the Anglo- 
American Society, and its proceeds will 
be used entirely in connection with the 
purposes of the Chair. 

The Chair has been given the broad 
title of a Chair of "American History, 
Literature, and Institutions" dehberately ; 
for the reason that it is desired to include 
all these subjects in the scope of its 
Lectures, from year to year, and also 
to draw upon a wide variety of eminent 
Lecturers, who will be able to interpret 
American life and history, in its broadest 
aspects, to the British people. 

It is not proposed that the Chair should 
be attached to any one University, but 
that it shall be used for the general 
purpose of stimulating interest in and 
study of America in all British Uni- 
versities. 

(961 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

Neither will the Chair be held per- 
manently by one scholar, of a single 
nationality, but for a period of one or 
two years by American or British Scholars 
or pubhc men, — thus drawing upon the 
best intellectual resources of the two 
countries, and securing a variety of 
treatment of the subjects dealt with. 

The Committee trust that this Founda- 
tion will assist to create in this country 
a wider knowledge of America to-day, 
and of the liistory, hterature, and institu- 
tions of the great Transatlantic Common- 
wealth of Enghsh-speaking people. 

The Chair, it is hoped, will serve as a 
permanent memorial of America's loyal 
partnership with Great Britain in the 
Great War, as well as of the historic 
ties of kinship which unite the British 
and American peoples. 

Lord Bryce's Inaugural Lecture will be 

[97] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

followed, in the Spring of 1922, by a 
Course of Six Lectures by President 
Hadley, of Yale University, on "Some 
American Economic Problems of To- 
day." These lectures will be given at 
different British University centres, and 
subsequently published in uniform style 
with the present volume. 

The Committee of the Anglo-American 
Society desire to acknowledge the great 
assistance they received from Sir Francis 
Trippel in bringing the subject of the First 
Chair of American History to the atten- 
tion of Sir George Watson, and in securing 
his practical interest in the proposal. 

All communications relating to the 
Watson Chair should be addressed to: 

The Secretary, Watson Chair Foundation, 
c/o The Anglo-American Society and Sulgrave 

Institution, 

1, Central Buildings, Westminster, 
London, S.W.I. 

(98] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

THE SIR GEORGE WATSON CHAIR 

The offer of Sir George Watson to 
found and endow a Chair of American 
History, Literature and Institutions, was 
conveyed in the following letter to H.R.H. 
the Duke of Connaught, President of the 
Anglo-American Society under date of 
November 27th, 1919: 

SULHAMSTEAD HoUSE, 

Theale, Berks. 
Your Royal Highness, 

I have learnt with the deepest interest that 
the programme drawn up by the committee of 
the Anglo-American Society in connection with 
the Pilgrim Fathers tercentenary celebrations 
next year includes the foundation and endowment 
of a Chair of American History, Literature, and 
Institutions of a novel kind in Great Britain. 

I agree with the committee that the foundation 

of such a chair or lectureship would greatly 

assist in creating in this country a wider knowledge 

of America, £uid of its history, literature, and 

[991 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

political, educational, and social institutions, 
thereby knitting more closely together the bonds 
of comradeship between the two great English- 
speaking democracies, upon whose good-will and 
friendship the peace of the world depends. 

I also share the committee's belief that, as a 
permanent memorial of America's loyal partner- 
ship with the British Empire during the war as 
well as of the historic ties which unite our two 
peoples, nothing could be more fitting than the 
estabhshment of such an educational foundation. 
It would have considerable effect in clearing 
away the ignorance and the resulting prejudice, 
which should be frankly recognised on both 
sides of the Atlantic as the real stumbling block 
in the way of closer union between the two 
nations. In spite of the brotherhood of arms 
during the war, there is still a call for much 
discriminating labour to banish this prejudice. 
The diplomatic relations between the two coun- 
tries would enter upon a smoother path if the 
far-seeing efforts of the statesmen on both sides 
were aided instead of hampered by the man-in- 
the-street; and the commercial relations, which 
as a consequent natural development must vastly 
improve, would do so with far more rapid strides 
(1001 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

if business men were to realise the fact that 
mutual knowledge means better trade. 

Every effort should, therefore, be made to 
prevent a weakening of the sympathies which 
have been so greatly stimulated between the 
two countries by the historic visit of His Royal 
Highness the Prince of Wales, and it is good 
politics, good business, good morals, to maintain 
them firmly on their present high level. To all 
American residents in this country, or visiting 
it for business or pleasure, and to all British who 
have personal or commercial ties with the United 
States, it is a matter of moment that a reciprocal 
knowledge and sympathy should grow at a rapid 
rate and be rooted in a firm soil. And all enlight- 
ened men and women who — apart from personal 
or business interests — are possessed of a wide 
vision, must also feel an impulse to take advantage 
of any opportunity of furthering so. desirable an 
aim. 

British universities and schools have hitherto 
given little attention to this important subject. 
It is necessary to generate a new interest in and 
make America and its life and thought better 
and more universally known and understood in 
this country. 

(1011 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

For all these reasons it would he a source of 
great pleasure and satisfaction to me if your Royal 
Highness would consent to convey, as President 
of the Anglo-American Society, my cheque for 
£20,000 as a gift to His Royal Highness the 
Prince of Wales for founding and endowing the 
above-mentioned chair. 

The present juncture, when the echoes of the 
wonderful reception of the Prince of Wales by 
the American people are still reverberating 
throughout the world, seems to me a felicitous 
occasion for expressing the hope that His Royal 
Highness, on reaching the shores of his native 
land will graciously accept this free-will gift 
in the spirit in which it is given for the intended 
purpose, and allow the Chair to be named "The 
Prince of Wales's Chair of American History, 
Literature, and Institutions." 

Yours faithfully, 

W. George Watson 



(102] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S 
REPLY 

The following is the Duke of Con- 
naught's reply to Sir George Watson, 
dated December 1st: 

Dear Sir George Watson, 

Lord Weardale, Chairman of the Executive 
Committee, has transmitted to me, as President 
of the Anglo-American Society, your letter of 
the 28th inst. and the accompanying cheque for 
£20,000. 

I will communicate your letter and gift to 
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales immed- 
iately upon his arrival and he will doubtless 
personally address you on the subject; but I 
cannot refrain from at once giving expression to 
you on behalf of the Anglo-American Society 
how deeply we appreciate the high purpose which 
has inspired your magnificent donation, and the 
happy choice of the occasion of the return of 
the Prince of Wales from his most successful 
journey to give effect to it. 
1103] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

This journey marks, we believe, a momentous 
epoch in the relations of America and Great 
Britain. The remarkable and generous mani- 
festation of sentiment which his visit evoked 
among all classes in America shows how recent 
events and common ends pursued in fraternal 
union on th^ fields of battle have effaced all 
disturbing memories, and brought the English- 
speaking peoples into closer touch than at any 
time in their previous history. 

This great achievement you desire to signalise 
and develop to greater advantage by the founda- 
tion of a Chair of American History, Literature, 
and Institutions, which shall give to the rising 
generation a new interpretation of the past 
relations of the two nations, and new hopes and 
confidence in their future. 

It is difficult to imagine a more timely and 
well-directed benefaction, and the Anglo-Ameri- 
can Society, in conveying to you their most 
cordial expressions of gratitude, can now, as a 
consequence of your striking and spontaneous 
intervention, contemplate with greater satis- 
faction the full realisation of their programme 
(104] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

for the due celebration next year in Great Britain 
and America of the Tercentenary of the sailing 
of the * Mayflower' and the Pilgrim Fathers. 
Believe me, yours sincerely, 

Arthur, 
President, Anglo-American Society. 



(105] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

THE PRINCE'S LETTER 

The following is the text of the Prince 
of Wales's letter to Sir George Watson, 
dated St James's Palace, December 4th, 
1919: 

Dear Sir George Watson, 

Nothing could have more touched and gratified 
me upon reaching again the shores of Great 
Britain than the announcement just made to 
me by the Duke of Connaught of your noble 
gift of £20,000 for the foundation of a Chair of 
American History, Literatiu-e, and Institutions, 
and this is very pleasing to me as I have no 
personal connection with the Society. 

My all too short visit to the American Con- 
tinent has convinced me of the common under- 
lying sentiment which resides in all sections 
of the English-speaking world. Such differences 
as must naturally exist are more those of form 
and habit than of substance, and no purpose 
can be higher than the one to which your benefi- 
cence has been directed of endeavouring by 
educational effort to remove those false impres- 
[106] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

sions which an erroneous interpretation of past 
history, or of the varying forms of our democratic 
communities, have created and still unfortunately 
prevail. 

May I, however, venture to suggest that it 
would be more fitting under these circumstances 
that the foundation should bear the name of the 
generous donor, and therefore be known as the 
Sir George Watson's Chair of American History, 
Literature, and Institutions? 

Yours sincerely, 

Edward P. 



[107] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

ENGLAND AND AMERICA 

From The Times leading article, 
December 5th, 1919. 

The foundation and endowment of a Chair 
for the study of American history, literature, 
and institutions is an interesting and valuable 
feature in the programme of the Anglo-American 
Society for the celebration next year of the 
sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers three hundred years 
ago. Sir George Watson has been happily in- 
spired to make the return of the Prince of 
Wales from his historic visit across the Atlantic 
the occasion for the munificent gift of £20,000 
to this end. By the terms of the programme 
the donor has the right to have the Chair called 
after his name. Sir George proposed that it 
should be known as "The Prince of Wales's 
Chair," but the Prince, while acknowledging 
with the gratitude it deserves the gift and the 
suggestion, thinks it more fitting that the founda- 
tion should bear the name of the giver. That 
is the old tradition and the wisdom of preserving 
it will be generally recognised. The tenure of 
the Chair will be in some respects exceptional. 
[ 108 1 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

It will not be established in any one of our uni- 
versities, or filled permanently by an individual 
professor. The scheme proposes that a British 
and an American scholar or public man should 
hold the office for periods of a year or two in 
alternate succession. There may be difficulties 
in working out the idea in practice, but of its 
excellence there can be no doubt. . . . 

The occupants of the new Chair from both 
sides of the Atlantic will turn themselves, we 
trust, thoughtfully and earnestly, to the great 
task of furthering Anglo-American inter-compre- 
hension. There could hardly be a task nobler or 
greater. The understanding between Englishmen 
and Americans certainly can be made much more 
thorough than it has been hitherto. We have 
learnt to know each other in war as we never 
knew each other before. We have now to supple- 
ment that knowledge in peace, and the close 
study of each other's history, literature and 
institutions is an indispensable part of the process. 
The neglect of American history in British 
universities hitherto has been almost complete. 
From a purely intellectual standpoint that is 
a serious loss. The interest of observing how a 
new and isolated society, originally equipped 
[109] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

with our own moral and intellectual endowments 
of three hundred yeais ago, adapted them, 
rejected them, and added to them, as the needs 
of their peculiar civilisation demanded, should 
fascinate any true student of comparative politics 
in the wide sense of this last term. A comparison 
of the results with those which we ourselves 
have attained, under the stress of European 
complications, from the same stock of ideas, 
principles, and habits during the same period 
would probably yield useful lessons in the prac- 
tical art of government. . . . 

If the professors filling the new Chair are as 
sharp-sighted and as judicious (as the Prince 
of Wales, during his American visit) they cannot 
fail to foster a view saner and more wholesome 
than at present exists of the actual relations 
between the masses of the two chief English- 
speaking democracies, and of the measure of 
future development which these relations admit. 
In that way they may do very much to ensure 
that both will pursue their independent courses 
in accordance with those "key" ideas which they 
hold, and have always held, in common. 



(1101 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

ANGLO-AMERICAN STUDIES 

From The Observer leading article, 
December 7th, 1919 

The vision of the Mayflower Tercentenary 
Committee and the generosity of Sir George 
Watson have made possible an educational 
experiment which must needs have political 
effect. The new Watson Chair is no ordinary 
professorship. Its wide range — it covers the 
history, literature, and institutions of the United 
States — contrasts with the general tendency 
towards specialised research. The Chair is unique, 
too, in being attached to no one British Univer- 
sity, and the period of tenure is exceptionally 
short. It is intended to combine the permement 
quality of a professorship with the variety and 
freshness of annual lectureship, and so to found 
a school which shall have none of the traditional 
narrowness of a school. Altogether a most in- 
teresting educational departure. 

The political interest is, however, transcendent. 

Though there has been a solid development of 

Anglo-American friendship since the war, the 

two peoples have still much to learn of each other, 

[111] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

In great things, indeed, Briton and American 
think alike. But in Httle things they differ pro- 
foundly, and, after all, life is largely made up of 
trifles. England is compact, homogeneous, so- 
cially stable, whereas America is scattered, full 
of racial incoherence, and socially fluid. It will 
be for the new Chair to show how these differences 
of circumstances produce divergencies in detail 
of temperament and outlook. 

The historical method proper to a professorship 
is specially appropriate in the study of Anglo- 
American relations. The national life of both 
peoples is penetrated with a sense of tradition. 
Both are conscious of the historic past as an 
element in the present, and an influence in the 
future. In French history, 1789 marks a breach; 
new forces emerge and shatter the old State. 
But in American history, 1776 emphasises a 
continuity; old forces gather their full strength 
and complete the fabric of the State. That is 
why the old uncritical American patriotism 
represented Independence as the expulsion of 
certain evil elements from the body politic. 
That, too, is why text-books can affect Anglo- 
American relations so profoundly. Anglo-French 
friendship will not be influenced by controversies 
(112] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

about Napoleon, but Anglo-American friendship 
is impossible without agreement about Wash- 
ington. The great truth that hope for the future 
relations of the two peoples must be based upon 
a sober and just appreciation of the past is in 
need of special emphasis just now, when a spirit 
is abroad which treats everything before the war 
as negligible and talks of a fresh start for a new 
world. Britons and Americans above all other 
peoples, have in their bones a sense of the error 
of such reasoning. There are no fresh starts in 
human affairs; the consequences of what has been 
must needs work themselves out for ever and 
make history by their working. To understand 
modern America, to interpret, for example, the 
Senate's recent policy aright, we must know 
what America has been, and such knowledge 
cannot come except by that study of American 
history, literature, and institutions which the 
Watson Chair has been founded to promote. 



fll3] 



INDEX 



Aberdeen, the Marquess 

of, 9 
"American," the name 

misleading, 22 
American Nation, origins 

of, 18 
American History 
President Butler on, 8 
Viscount Bryce on 

Too little studied in 

England, 13 
When did it begin? 

14 sq. 
First stage, 19 
Second stage, 21 
Third stage, 24 
Value of study of, to 
Englishmen, 76 sq., 
81 
Linked with that of 
other Enghsh-speak- 
ing communities, 85 
(See also Appendix) 
Anglo-American Friend- 
ship 
Mr Balfour on, 7 
Viscount Bryce on, 83 sq. 
Anglo-American Society, 
5, 8, 94, 95, 96, 99, 
102, 103 



Bacon, 23 



Balfour, Rt Hon. A. J., 

5-8 
Bryce, Rt Hon. Viscount, 

5, 6, 7, 8 
BuNYAN, John, 23 
Burke, Edmund, 38 
Butler, President Nicholas 

Murray, 8-9 

Chair, The Sir George 
Watson 
Prince of Wales on, 5, 

103, 106-107 
Duke of Connaught on, 

103-105 
Sir George Watson on, 

99-102 
Viscount Bryce on, 13 
Mr Balfour on, 5-6, 7-8 
The Times on, 108-110 
The Observer on, 111-113 
Appendix on origin of, 
93 sq. 
Chatham, Earl of, 38 
Climate, Influences of, in 

U.S., 25-28 
Colonization, in U.S., be- 
ginnings of, 15,42-50 
Combinations, commercial 
in U.S., power of, 70 
CoMiNEs, Philip of, 21 



115 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 



CONNAUGHT, H.R.H. the 
Duke of, Letter from, 
103-105 
Constitution, The Amer- 
ican, 52-62 
A model for others. 54-55 
Three tests of, 63 sq. 
Cotton, and slavery, 27 
Cromwell, Oliver, 23 

Dickens, Charles, 30 

Ebbsfleet, 23 

Economic issues, their in- 
fluence on American 
politics, 70 

English-speaking Peoples 
The, their supreme 
mission, 89-91 

Equality, social, con- 
ditions favourable to, 
in America, 29-30 

Eric, The Red, 14 

Executive, relations to 
Legislature, 55 

Experiments, American, in 
government, their 
value to English stu- 
dents, 76-77 

"Foreigners," English 
and American not 
to each other, 78 



Foreign-affairs, U.S. ma- 
chinery for dealing 
with, 60-62 
Rritish ditto, 62 

Foundation, The Watson 
Chair, (see Appen- 
dix) 

Freedom, U.S: not the 
only sanctuary of, 
now, 71-72 
American pride and trust 
in, 74-76 

Froissart, 21 

George IH, 38 
Germanic tribes, 20 
Government, popular, tri- 
umph of, in U.S.,72-73 

Hadley, President, 98 

Hampden, John, 23 

Harvey, 23 

Heritage, spiritual, etc. 
of the American peo- 
ple, 22-23 

History, U.S., 82 (see 
under American) 

Hundred Years Peace, 93 

Immigration to U.S., 42- 
50; Effect on Amer- 
ican character, 45 

Independence, American, 
15, 33, 112 



116 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 



Indians, The American, 
16-17, 28 

Influences, upon English 
settlers in America, 
24 sq. 

Institutions, American, 
based on like founda- 
tions to EngUsh, 77 
English, in 14th and 
15th centuries, 20-21 

Intercourse, between U. 
S. and England, 
should be increased, 
81 

Intermixture, racial, in 
U.S., 46-50 

Invention, spurs to, 28 

Ireland, outflow from, 43 
Problem of, 57 

Jackson, President An- 
drew, 63 
Julius Caesar, 20 

Language, common, does 

not always conduce 

to friendship, 82-83 

English, spread of, 82-87 

Law, similar origins of 
Americein and Brit- 
ish, 77 

Law and Order, respect 
for, in U.S., 74-75 



Legislature, relations to 

Executive, 55 
Liberty, 31, 71, 72-76 
Lincoln, Abraham, 67 
Literature, influence of 
European on Amer- 
ica, 24 
Lord mayor, of London, 8 
Lynching, 28 

Mansion house, London, 5 

Milton, John, 23 

Monopolies, trouble to 
legislators, 70 

Moral forces, in Ameri- 
can poUtics, 75 

Mother land, 22 

Negro, problem of, in 

U.S., 28, 66 
Newton, Isaac, 23 

Parliamentary system, 
the British, 56 

Party organization, dan- 
gerous perfection of, 
in U.S., 70 

Peace, of world, 89-91 

Perris, Mr H. S., 5 

PilgrimFathers,15,94,105 

Prehistoric, America, 14 

President, Limitation to 
powers of, 60-62 



1117] 



THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

Problems, American, and Tacitus, 20 

their lessons for the Taylor, Jeremy, 23 
world, 77 Trevelyan, Sir G. O., 37 



Relations, Anglo-Ameri- 
can, 7, 83, 100-101, 
104, 109, 112 

Resources, of American 
territory, influence 
of, 40-42 

Revolution, The Ameri- 

' can, 30-34, 37 

Roanoke, 15 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 30 

Secession, War of, 63-67 
Senate, 60, 113 
Shakespeare, 23 
Sherman, General, 68-69 
Slavery, 27, 35, 57 
Spanish-America, 55, 73 
Spenser, 23 

SuLGRAVE Institution, The, 
8 



Universities, in U.S. ,41-42 
In Britain, and American 
history teaching, 93, 
101, 108, 111 

Wakefield, Sir Charles, 

8 
Wales, H.R.H. the Prince 

of, 5, 103, 106-107 
War, The Civil, in U.S., 

63-67 ; Clemency 

after, 67 sq. 
Of Independence, 33 
Of 1914-1918, 97, 100 
Watson, Sir W. George, 

Bart., 5, 7, 8, 13, 95, 

99-113 
Wealth, in U.S., 40 
Weardale, Lord, 103 
West, The American, 29, 

35 



(118] 



